Only the warm sun had taken him out today, for Phelim said that he was close on ninety years of age.
Then he set forth his hand to me, and laid it on my arm.
"Tell me who you are," he said.
"We are Norse folk, cast ashore here by mischance in the gale." "Norse ?" he said.

"Yet you speak the tongue of my childhood--the kindly Gaelic of the islands which is not that altogether of the Erse of today.

It is full sixty years since I heard it." "My mother was a Scottish lady," I answered.

"My own name is Malcolm." "Tell me more," he said eagerly.

"Let me hear the old tongue again before I die." Now, it is in no wise easy to be told to talk without a hint in the way of question on which to begin, and I hesitated.